Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In his wry, inimitable style, Nye (The Late Mr. Shakespeare; Falstaff) delves into the mind, heart and soul of Elizabethan adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh as he embarks on his final voyage. Late in life, after suffering 13 years of unjust imprisonment in the Tower of London, Raleigh is released on the condition that he go in search of South American gold for greedy King James I. On his ill-conceived journey, Raleigh falls ill and is stranded off the coast of Trinidad. His son continues up the Orinoco River with half the expedition, but is killed in a battle with Spanish forces. Since Raleigh was forbidden on pain of death to fight the Spanish, he knows he is doomed if he returns to England. The subsequent chapters find Raleigh facing a fateful decision-to turn to piracy and raid the silver-laden Spanish "Plate Fleet" or set sail for England and face death by hanging at the hands of King James. Nye's narration is jittery in the early going as the author hops back and forth between the ill-fated expedition, Raleigh's memories of his infamous romance with Elizabeth I and his odd relationship with the spiritual but violent Guayacunda, an Indian who becomes Raleigh's aide and introduces the Englishman to the mysterious powers of the coca leaf. But once Nye finds his rhythm, he takes readers on a wild historical ride, probing Raleigh's life and character in scenes that range from the bawdy and profane to the reflective ("The voyage of my history. The tale of my life and fortunes. Descriptive. Expository"). The man who emerges is a tremendously flawed and vital being, perfectly suited to Nye's wise, richly imaginative and riotously entertaining brand of historical portraiture. (Jan.) Forecast: Though Raleigh doesn't have the same pull as Shakespeare, Nye is building a reputation in the U.S. among the PBS crowd, and this latest novel should make a strong showing. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Nye, author of the raucous The Late Mr. Shakespeare (1999), turns his attention to another intriguing historical celebrity, providing a fictionalized version of the amazing life and times of Sir Walter Raleigh. Narrated by Raleigh himself--only recently released from the Tower of London by a fickle King James I--this account juxtaposes his ill-fated final voyage in search of gold for the crown with anecdotes about his previous life as a soldier, a diplomat, an explorer, and a lover. Interweaving Raleigh's present escapades with his past exploits, Nye paints a robust portrait of a clever adventurer and courtier determined to drain every ounce of possibility out of each and every experience. Returning to England after surviving his disastrous voyage, Raleigh is once again sentenced to death by King James. Interspersed with snippets of Raleigh's own poetry, this entertaining account of an Elizabethan idol is a richly textured piece of historical fiction. --Margaret Flanagan

Kirkus Book Review

The confessions of Sir Walter Ralegh (a.k.a. Raleigh)--in a dense, dirge-like, bitterly poetic memoir which, while full of fictional speculations, is far more straightforward than Nye's fanciful, aggressively modern treatments of Faust, Merlin, and Falstaff. Ralegh is writing this free-form autobiography in 1618, aboard the Destiny; after 14 years in the Tower of London for ""treason,"" he has been released by King James, who has sent Ralegh off with a fleet of ships to find gold in the New World. But, with ""Death at the helm,"" the voyage is doomed: Ralegh's son has been killed; it's becoming clear that there's no gold to be found; the bedraggled ships are deserting. (""I have command of a flotilla of turds."") And so, while deciding on what to do next--keep looking for gold? return home to certain execution? turn pirate against Spanish ships?--Ralegh takes the blame for his son's death, drugs himself with exotic flora, thinks fondly of wife Bess, broods on his London enemies, and recalls (in accumulating fragments) his less-than-noble career. He recalls early years fighting in France, being overwhelmed by 1575 London: ""a vast hive,"" with honey that was ""cerebral and passionate and absolute and virginal. It had something to do with the queendom. It had everything to do with the Queen."" He re-creates the legendary moment with the puddle and cloak: ""I performed the poetry. . . . She understood my action perfectly."" He sketches in Elizabeth's ""golden idolatrous Court,"" with his own eventual arrival in the royal bedroom: ""I remember each trick, each cheat, each turn, each parry, each tease, every ugly and pretty perversity which served to keep Elizabeth a virgin. . . . She feasted on me. I got nothing back."" And, while heading back to England and fending off repeated attempts at mutiny, Ralegh berates himself for his opportunism (""I blame only myself for glorying in the glory. I don't hate you . . . I dislike you, Elizabeth Tudor. Dislike, dislike""), for pursuing foolish ambitions. True, the last 100 pages of this long, ruminating novel drag badly--as Ralegh, after bringing his history up to date (as for the supposed treason, ""I was just a dangerous ghost"" from Elizabeth's reign), returns to England to engage in the slow, cat-and-mouse court intrigues (""I smell Bacon"") that will end in his execution. And, throughout, there's too much repetition and elaboration to hold a conventional historical-fiction audience. Still, for those familiar with the textbook version of Ralegh's story, Nye offers a dark, restless, persuasive counterpoint that's often intriguing--relentlessly dour, yet with frequent passages of grim power and evocative beauty. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Robert Thomas Nye was born in London, England on March 15, 1939. At the age of 16, he left school and published his first poem, Kingfisher, in the London Magazine. He was a poet who also wrote novels, plays, and stories for children. His collections of poetry include Juvenilia, Juvenilia 2, and The Rain and The Glass, which won the Cholmondeley Award. He became the poetry editor of the newspaper The Scotsman in 1967. From 1971 to 1996, he was the poetry critic of The Times of London.

His children's books include Taliesin, March Has Horse's Ears, and Beowulf: A New Telling. His first novel for adults, Doubtfire, was published in 1967. His other novels for adults included The Life and Death of My Lord Gilles de Rais, Merlin, Faust, The Memoirs of Lord Byron, Mrs. Shakespeare: The Complete Works, and The Late Mr. Shakespeare. His novel, Falstaff, won The Hawthornden Prize and Guardian Prize for Fiction. During the early 1970s, he wrote several plays for BBC radio including A Bloody Stupid Hole. He died from cancer on July 3, 2016 at the age of 77.

(Bowker Author Biography)